TRIZ: Creative Breeze for Quality Professionals

s auditors, quality engineers, statisticians, inspectors and managers, most quality professionals appreciate an orderly approach to assessing situations, collecting data, solving problems and tracking corrective actions. Like other solid, left-brain thinkers, many of us cringe at the notion of engaging in right-brained creative thinking that often smacks of the touchyfeely programs the HR department would sponsor. Indeed, many of the creative thinking programs in vogue call for people to think outside the box by using unorthodox activities to jolt thinking out of the comfortable routine ways of seeing a situation. But are we ready to follow Doug Hall’s example and pull out the water guns and hose each other down in a meeting to provide the jump-start our cognitive processes may need?